15,000 fined in a month for smoking in public places

GURUGRAM: Give a second thought before you light up a cigarette at a market, bus stop or a metro station. Police have launched a crackdown on smoking in public places and over the last one month fined over 15,000 people in the city for the offence under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA). Police commissioner Sandeep Khirwar said the city has created a record of sorts in India by booking 15,487 people for smoking in public in just one month. In comparison, 17,454 people were challaned in Gurgaon under COTPA by the police in all of 2017. In a similar drive in south Delhi areas earlier this month, Delhi Police fined nearly 7,000 people for smoking in public. According to COTPA, 2003, smoking in public places is banned and those who violate the law will be slapped a fine of Rs 200. Of the 15,487 people challaned for smoking in public in Gurgaon in the last one month, some 2,353 were find just on a single day — January 10. This year, the drive was conducted in areas near educational institutions, government offices, entertainment centres, hospitals and malls, and at bus stops and railway station.

“Smoking is not just a personal health choice but it also affects people around the smokers. It is illegal to smoke at a public place and we will enforce it strictly in Gurgaon. We will now enforce other provisions of COTPA Act that ban selling of tobacco products to minors,” said Khirwar.

COTPA defines a public place as any place to which people have access, including hospital buildings, railway waiting rooms, amusement centres, restaurants, public offices, court buildings, educational institutions, libraries, public conveyances, auditoriums and open spaces around establishments. The definition of open space is, however, vague and has often been debated. According to Gurgaon police data, around 48 lakh people in Haryana consume tobacco in some form such as cigerattes, bidis, hookah, gutkha etc; and around 28,000 people die every year due to tobacco-related illnesses. Out of these, at least 10% are just passive smokers.